Brassieres, commonly known as bras, are undergarments typically worn by women under clothing to provide support to their breasts. Bras are designed to be form fitting around the chest of a wearer, and usually include a chest band that wraps around the wearer's torso, two cups that hold the breasts, and two straps that extend from the cups, over the wearer's shoulder, and attach to the back of the chest band. Bra manufacturers often size bras to fit prototypical women of a certain chest circumference and cup size, and assume that both breasts are equally sized and positioned.
Unfortunately, most women are not shaped like the prototypical women that the bras are designed to fit. In addition to varying chest sizes, women's breasts vary in volume, width, height, composition, shape, and position on the chest. As such, bras are often manufactured with adjustable straps that allow women to tailor the fit of the bra to meet their unique measurements. FIG. 1 illustrates a typical adjustable strap 2 of a bra 1. Adjustable straps 2 are formed by looping a portion of the strap through a ring 4 and then attaching an end of the strap to a slider 6 positioned on a non-looped portion 10 of the strap. The slider 6 can be moved up and down (as indicated by the arrow) the strap. That movement changes the proportion of the looped portion 8 to non-looped portion 10, thereby adjusting the length of the strap 2 and the fit of the bra 1.
Beyond fit, adjustable straps allow women to personalize the bra to meet other personal wants and needs, such as the amount of support, the amount of lift, the amount of cleavage, and the amount of restraint. While adjustable straps do have the stated advantages, the sliders of the adjustable straps often move during use, which causes unintentional and undesirable adjustment of one or both straps—to the annoyance of wearer. Thus, often women have to continually readjust their straps to maintain the fit and other desired features (i.e. lift, support, etc.). The sliders also tend to move during wash, requiring the wearers to re-adjust the sliders/straps after each wash in an effort to recreate their desired fit.